Internet of things: history and hype, technology and policy

Although Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications and services have their roots in ideas that are decades old, their increasingly widespread deployments have made them a hot topic these days. Frequent topics of discussion and hype, they are causing both excitement and concern. As many as 50B networked devices are envisioned by 2020, and proponents of IoTs see a world where embedded sensing and control techniques help vehicle traffic flow more smoothly, where environmental sensing and data analysis facilitates better use of natural resources like water, and where personalized health monitoring helps individuals improve their quality of life. On the other hand, properly addressing policy concerns around security and privacy may play a role in IoT's adoption and success. My talk will discuss key technology and policy challenges for future IoT applications and devices, and will outline particular technical issues for researchers to address. Overall, I will be drawing from both technical experiences and trends, as well as from perspectives gained during a one year fellowship doing technology policy within the U. S. Department of State.

Bio

Margaret Martonosi is the Hugh Trumbull Adams '35 Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, where she has been on the faculty since 1994. From August 2015-2016, she served as a Jefferson Science Fellow doing international aspects of technology policy within the U. S. Department of State. Martonosi's technical research focuses on computer architecture and mobile computing, particularly power-efficient systems. Past projects include the Wattch power modeling tool used by thousands of engineers worldwide, and the ZebraNet mobile sensor network, which was deployed for wildlife tracking in Kenya. Her current work addresses hardware-software challenges in heterogeneous parallelism.

Martonosi is a Fellow of both IEEE and ACM. Her major awards include Princeton University's 2010 Graduate Mentoring Award, the Anita Borg Institute's 2013 Technical Leadership Award, NCWIT's 2013 Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award, the 2015 Marie Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award, and ISCA's 2015 Long-Term Influential Paper Award. She was also recently named an Andrew Dickson White Visiting Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association.

“There is very little success where there is little laughter.” Andrew Carnegie

“I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. ” Steve Jobs

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ” Will Durant

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand” Chinese Proverb

“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Steve Jobs

“There's nothing I believe in more strongly than getting young people interested in science and engineering, for a better tomorrow, for all humankind.” Bill Nye

“At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.” Carl Sagan

“Creativity...involves the power to originate, to break away from the existing ways of looking at things, to move freely in the realm of imagination, to create and recreate worlds fully in one's mind—while supervising all this with a critical inner eye.” Oliver Sacks

“I just believe that the way that young people's minds develop is fascinating. If you are doing something for a grade or salary or a reward, it doesn't have as much meaning as creating something for yourself and your own life.” Steve Wozniak